The Testimony of the Sidhe
by AughraOfEarth
Summary: Writing for NaNo 2019: An experiment in breaking writer's block. In 30 days, a target of 50K new words, and my profound hope that at the end of it I will have "High Roads and Low" properly back on the road again.
1. Chapter 1

What you see before you is very much an experiment. It all has to do with the _SWatH_ sequel novel I've had 'in progress' since 2013...which I _am_ still hell-bent on seeing finished, but have spent most of the past year either distracted from by RL, or blocked on, and every round has seen my blocked state get worse, and worse. Not because I don't know where I want the story to go: _hellno_. I've known for going on seven flippin' _years _where I want it to go. I've written two successful NaNos worth of material for it, and more besides.

What's been killing me is, that when I sit down and write towards the events I've written, _I can't logically get to any of it. _ I can't get to Eric ax-fighting with a Sidhe wyrm-lord after being swept off to the Otherworld, or Snow getting an unwanted flight by dragon (or overnight snugglies with Eric, when he gets home at either Yuletide or Samhain) or William being flummoxed over how to deal, when Snow finally realizes that sex is a thing, and losing her virginity may just be, among other things, all of an urgent practical, political, and magical necessity. In other words, the fun stuff! Which, logically, needs to flow from the demands of a larger, far more compelling story…which in general, so far has eluded me.

The most efficient thing I can say about any of it at this stage, is **_it's time to get this pig off the ground._**

**-o0 Day 0 0o-**

In the words of Lorcan, wyvern-lord, brother of Cian, Lord of House Wyvern, Tiarna na cinn Ársa:

Eleven years. It was a long enough time to live bound by the witch Ravenna.

It was in that season of death which ended that war between Men and Sidhe which had for fifty years ravaged the Otherworld, that Ravenna came to my brother Cian. The Iron Queen! Once slave and concubine to Argentius the Raven King, and in the folly of his dotage, the wife who killed him.

It had been a mystery then for most of four hundred years, how she had she had so long sustained herself as the undying, ever young and beauteous Queen who ruled in the lands of House Raven, despite her being of no more than mortal stock.

A raven came first, flying in at the door of the great hall at Caisleán an Dragon, where the officers of our warband were gathered with my brother to decide how we should go forward amidst the ruin of our lands. There it flung down an ivory cylinder at his feet, and flew out again as swiftly. In it lay a message that she would seek parley with him in ten days time, on the road running across the wide plain lying before the castle. If he would accept this, it directed he might fly a plain banner of straw-coloured cloth above the gates, and she with her champion would come to meet him.

At this there was both amazement and some consternation among our retainers, but my brother only considered a moment, and smiled a small, cold smile.

"Let her come," he said. He beckoned forward his squire. "And straw-coloured cloth she would have, hey? Hah! Turlach, have someone make a banner of one of my bedsheets, and raise it above our gates.

"She has not the nerve to ask for _white_," he continued, "as I will not promise her peace, or grant her any hint of surrender," and then he looked to me and quirked a brow. "Though I suppose I may wonder if her choice suggests any _she_ might be considering."

"Perhaps coloured by her memories," I said, "or else willing you to remember, in hopes of tempting you to ...generosity."

"And I do remember," he replied, "oh that, most certainly! But it is far too late for my temptation in any manner, where she is concerned."

This was then some five or six days after the High King Deaglan had released his master spell, that had brought death upon all the mortal women and girls in our lands—any who had not earlier been borne away by Mab, his Queen, with her women—and in turn, Ravenna had released her plague of iron upon him, which slew him and all remaining of his court, before the next day's dawning.


	2. Day 1-2

**-o0 Day 1-2 0o-**

It was her brother Finn who came first to the parley, riding stately in black armour on a strong grey warhorse. From the battlements, we watched his progress along the road through the valley below the castle, and up to where it straightened and lay flat across the plain. A banner in straw silk drifted wide in the air moved by his passing, which he paused to shake wide as he came above the crest of the hill,

"He holds that banner left-handed," said Cian, as we watched. "I see no sword or lance, Lorcan, but be wary of that free right hand."

"Aye," I said. "Parley or not, no knowing what poisons such a creature might bear with him."

"Iron dust, or any of her other blighting metals." He clapped me on the shoulder. "Come, let us go down, and forth to meet him."

-o0o-

"Ho, champion!" my brother called, as we rode within a spear's cast of him, and he stopped to wait for us. "I see you, but where is your mistress?"

"She comes, Lord of Wyverns," the pale man replied. "Is this your champion?"

"Wyvern-lord Lorcan," said Cian. "My brother and my bard, and second of my warband." He smiled, showing teeth white and sharp, and set his fist upon his hip, and circled his horse a few steps, to face the other's side. "_I am my own champion_, mortal, and I am here. _Where is your sister?_"

"She comes!" Finn shifted his horse into a side-step, backing, and cast a glance beyond his shoulder into the greying sky behind tone firmed, as it seemed he saw something to comfort him. "She comes, by her own way, as she sees fit."

"Ahhh," said Cian, following his gaze."I see."

Now I saw also, specks of darkness gathering in the sky beyond him. A winged cloud of black birds, falling towards us from at first, the cries of ordinary ravens in the spring all but silent but for the harsh beating of wings, as the cloud fell closer into a spiral above the road beyond, swiftly spinning, ever closer, blurring into a shadow that formed at its centre.

A tall woman, pale and fair, in ivory satin, stepping lightly from the air. A tall-collared cloak of black feathers drifted wide from her shoulders, with that last soft step to earth.

"The Queen of House Raven," I said. Cian gave a soft, blunt snort, and swung down from his courser.

"_So,_ Ravenna." He matched her, measured step for step, as she came smoothly forward, until they faced at a step's distance on the ancient pavement."You have your parley. What do you want, that you imagine I might give you?"

"How much do you know of what has passed, in this last fortnight?"

"That the High King is slain, and with him all those kings who were his vassals," Cian said. "That your blight of iron has poisoned much of his demesne, and left the very stones of his citadel smoking."

He met her level stare, his face cold. "But I also know of the final spell they cast, together. I know that with it, we may consider our people's war with yours over—and I do _not_ think that you are here to claim the victory."

"Then you know," she said, "that he, with his, saw fit to send death upon half my kingdom in that time." Her eyes lit, fierce blue, in her white face. "A plague like frost sparkling in the air, that fell as death on every woman in my realm. Maid, mother, or crone, even the babes—if their blood was mortal, they have perished."

Cian nodded. "Not merely in your realm."

"You _knew_?"

"I hardly think that any of us didn't," he said. "Once we knew that was what it would take to end you, Ravenna—I had my differences with Deaglan, but I'll give him this, that he did not hesitate. Beyond yourself, I think no woman born of mortal stock still breathes the air of these lands, anywhere."

"Then you know he has ended me," she said, and he nodded again.

"I do," he said, and now his face lit at her expression. "And now you may tell me what you want."

For a long moment she said nothing, and then breathed deep. "Your help. I would bargain with you."

He matched her stare again, and then laughed outright. "That's either very brave or very stupid of you, woman! For how should you imagine, that I should care to bargain with you for _anything_?"

"Because I know what you want, Lord of Wyverns, and why, in the natural order of things, you cannot have it!" She lifted her head. "I know you, Cian. I know what brought you to my lord Argentius' house when we were both in our first youth, and that it was _not_ merely in search of a pretty bondslave to make your concubine—" She caught breath, and stopped. "And now, I can give it you."

"Oh, can you, you imagine?" He studied her with sardonic eyes. "In my first youth, I would have been High King."

"And with Deaglan now dead—"

"That avails me nothing!" That she had touched him, I could see in the line of his throat, and the way his hand clenched at his side, but his face stood now deliberately serene. "For as you say it could not be, in the natural order of things. It is not given to the lineage of dragons, that we be able to break the walls between this world and that of mortals, as a High King, as Oberon, must do."

"I can change that," she said.

"In what _dream_—"

"I hold Argentius' Book of Secrets," she said, "which is not one, but several." She looked to her brother. "Finn, give him the pages I gave you."

Finn bent to draw a sheaf of parchments from a bag at his saddlebow, and held it out to my brother's hand. Cian took it and stepped warily back, with a swift glance to me, and I stepped my horse between them as he scanned what he held.

"It's part of—something, Lorcan," he said. "Not a scribe's hand. Possibly Argentius'."

Ravenna did not move. "I am told it treats at length on how the barriers between this and the mortal world may be riven, and how this may be ordered for greatest simplicity."

"Of breaking the walls between worlds," said Finn. "As the High King must do, to prove himself as High King."

"The High King must prove his ability to do that," Cian replied, "_unaided_."

"Not true." Ravenna turned slowly between them, watching him. "The High King must either speak or sing the spell of opening in the ancient language of the Sidhe…but I had it from my lord Argentius' own lips, that his power could be enhanced in many ways. He said that his was, when he was Oberon, in the beginning."

"And for this, you hope for what?"

"In the end," she said, "I am mortal, and I am as ready to be done with this world, as it is surely ready to be done with me. Open the gate to that of my ancestors, Lord Cian, that I and what is left of my mortal army may ride out into it. Release us into that world, in return for the power to rule this one. At least—if you are strong enough to claim it."

"Do you hear this, brother?" He looked sideways at me, then swung out his arm to thrust the parchments into my hand. "Shall I treat with her?"

I looked down at the pages I held. "I think we may."


	3. Day 3-4

**-o0 Day 3-4 0o-  
**

It was part of a large book. A folio of thirty pages or so, for the most part black ink with additions in red and blue, and the hand in which it was lettered was both a little smaller than a scribe's, and less regular. A scholar's reflections, by the shape of it. More than a journal, less than a guide.

"It could be a grimoire," I said, and turned it to see how it ended. "It ends part-way through what looks like an invocation."

"We'd need more of it," said Cian. "At least the book it came from, and time with a scholar to read it." He stepped to circle Ravenna, so that she turned to face him. "But why should we?"

He shook his head, at her open stare.

"After all the ruin you and yours have brought upon our world—your poisonings of the air and waters, the over-running of Sidhe lands with your ever-breeding mortals—not even touching on the fates of the clans displaced, blood shed, holdings ravaged, and both Sidhe and mortal lives spent for nearly a hundred years, _nor_ counting the murder of the High King and most of the lesser kings who might have risen to take his place!" He stepped towards her, leaning in so that she recoiled, eyes widening. Breathed then, hard and savage. "Why _should_ we? I think it should be a greater pleasure to watch you die as you deserve, you and all your mortal men remaining."

He looked back then, at me. "I would not give my word, either, Lorcan, to accomplish anything such as this, when it is beyond both likelihood and knowing, whether I could do it."

"No, Ravenna," he continued, "I think your only choice now, must be whether you and your men retire to the wasteland you have made of Argentius' domain, and there live as you may until all of you are dead. Else we will hunt you down by every means, and end you like a nest of rats."

"So much for any hope you might do better!" She made to turn aside, clutching the edges of her cloak, then sprang back to face him. "_Damn you_, how I hate the Sidhe! You blame us for everything, never reckoning we never asked to be here! You curse us for everything that in any measure irks you, and account all vile, who do not possess the beauty you covet! You plead the offending of your eternal, noble delicacy, when everything we mortals see is that you take at will—you take and take, you use and steal and violate, and you trade in human lives without mercy!"

She drew back, all but hissing. "For four hundred years, I have _fought_ to keep my people safe and free in this benighted world! I held Argentius' lands as a protectorate for them, open to all who would live there, and in the doing I have abased myself and been used, I have been ruined and forced to set it aside, and I swear you uncaring beasts deserve every ill we have ever brought upon you!"

"Four hundred years you bought yourself," said Cian, "yourself and this brother of yours, by draining from the lives of your innocent women and girls."

"I bargained for my power with my women, and they gave to me willingly!" She stopped now for a moment, mute. "It was the only way we could ever hope to overset Argentius, to grow stronger as age weakened him."

"In the beginning," he said, "that might even have been true, but we are now centuries past his fall. Given what Deaglan at last learned of your practices from your own daughter and the maids she herself helped to flee, it has grown less so with the centuries." He shook his head again, his gaze unwavering from hers. "So much less true."

"It doesn't change plain fact," she said. "Lord Cian, none of we mortals who plague you _ever_ asked to be here. I have at my disposal knowledge none of us can use, but you can. Knowledge I do not think you will tell me that you would not like to have!—and I will trade it all to you, for the grace of one decision made on our behalf."

"That being?"

She drew herself straight. "End this. Truly end it, as a just and honourable King might do! Redeem your people by releasing those who are left of mine. Face that we should never have come to this, because we should never have been here in the first place. Open us a gate returning to the mortal world from which our ancestors were stolen, and let us pass through."

"And if you will not do it," said Finn, "Know that we shall give you no rest until indeed, the last of us is dead. Men without hope, Lord of Wyverns, have nothing to restrain them. We would make it cost you, and there would be no glory in it."

"It would be the Years of Slaughter come again," said Ravenna. "And further, Lord Cian, do not think the books that Argentius left us would survive to be reclaimed by Sidhe scholars." She drew a sigh. "As little as either Finn or I failing to return timely from this parley, will doom half of it."

"Not all," I said, and when they all three looked at me, I held out the folio again to Cian. "We'll need at least the rest of this volume, brother, and a moon or two in which to examine it."

"More than that!" he replied. He weighed the parchments in his hand, and considered the pair of them. "Ravenna, I can promise you nothing here and now, but that we will see. I will have the rest of this grimoire, and from now until Beltaine in which to see what sense may be made of it."

"Almost three moons," she said. "Yes. I agree."

-o0o-

"And now we shall discover," said my brother, when we came again before the castle gates a little later, "how the rest of our clan may take this bargain."


	4. Day 5-9

**Author's Note**: at this point _everything_ gets a lot looser, as I look to keep moving without losing any ideas which may prove useful later.

**Acronyms: TBD** = To be determined / **HRnL** = "High Roads and Low"

**Square brackets [ ] **mark situations where I'm 'thinking on paper'

**-o0 Day 4-9 0o-**

"So, my lord, what did the witch want?" called [TBD] when we rode again into the castle keep. [TBD = senior member of either Cian's family or warband, female Sidhe if feasible. Castellan? Constable? Someone who will stay home and holds the fort in the Otherworld, as events carry Cian, Lorcan, and their warband towards their adventures with Ravenna, this character is likely to either never be heard from again, or only to figure much, much later in HRnL.]

"A bargain!" Cian called back, and with deliberate calm urged his horse forward towards the steps leading to the great hall. "Ho! Ardgal, have 'assembly' blown to call our warband, to gather immediately in the feasting hall!"

He swung down at the foot of the steps, releasing and I followed his lead, climbing behind him to where our sons and a handful of their companions waited at the top. "Turlach, go and pray the favour of Lady [TBD - ranking full-blooded Sidhe 'lady of the castle', who might even be _mother - _Cian's and Lorcan's. It's a point to be made later that she's there because _as_ a born Sidhe, she's one of the few women associated with this clan who hasn't been evacuated to sanctuary with High Queen Mab's court, before the releasing of the High King's master spell bringing death on all mortal females in the land.*] and her companions, and you, Rogier, seek out Scholar Timuth and his apprentice and bid them join us as well, at the high table before the hearth."

-o0o-

Caisleán an Dragon is the oldest of our strongholds, dating from a time when our clan was but newly come to noble power, and its feasting hall was built to host the entirety of us, with room sufficient for the first calling-forth of a young wyvern by the Lord of his House, between its high table and its low central hearth. A memory that might make one uneasy, seeing that Lord of the House now pacing that broad, stone-flagged square.

My brother's mood must have seem uncertain, to most of those watching, but it was clear enough to me. The excitement of reawakened ambition, barely suppressed, which I will not say I did not understand.

Cian has always been ambitious. Like a man who cannot see a towering peak on the horizon, without burning to climb it, there is no achievement known to a lord of the Sidhe, which he has never striven for, and in most cases achieved. Only in matters constrained by blood has he ever had to bear limitation, and that with never more than a semblance of grace.

Foremost among these has been the matter of raising our House to royal rank.

The lords of House Wyvern are strong, and in that we attain the power of shapeshifting into the most powerful beast-forms known among us, we are respected. But it is the one great magic the sons of our House possesses by blood - that power of transformation, each according to his age and the force of his bloodline, into dragons. In youth and immaturity, fearsome wyrms, and later winged but flightless dragonets...with maturity wyverns powerful enough to fly, and in the height of age, full-grown dragons. Too great a magic to deny the clan nobility, but as all know, lesser than most of those seen in most other ancient clans. We do hear it whispered that but for the grandeur of the beasts we are capable of becoming, we are little more than ordinary were-folk.

In youth, we had both dreamed of changing that.

Now Cian sprang up to the dais where the high table stood, laid the parchments aside, and waited. Outside, dimmed now by the rush of running feet, the call of the carynx ended, and the hall's open doors darkened with the men of our warbands.

"My lords, what news?" cried Diarmuid, first curadh of my own warband, as he came before the fire, with the rest of our hearthguards and the younger warriors crowding behind him. "You've met with the witch!"

"I have!" Cian replied, and waited, arms folded, as his own oath-sworn pushed forward. Our curadhs directed the rest of their bands to their places around the hearth, and we saw that others, summoned or not, were gathering swiftly behind them. "And you shall all hear of it, shortly!"

"We shall say nothing," he said, sparing me a sideways glance, "until all are here, including Mother. What I am about to say - I would say but once."

"That might be wise," I said. I mounted to the dais beside him, and with the smallest gesture beckoned my sons to the steps beside it. "Attend our lady, when she comes." I swung a chair from the end of the high table to face where Cian stood, and tapped it, lifting a brow at Fallon, the elder.

"Aye, father," he said, and he and Niallán moved to flank the ascent.

There was a murmuring amidst the throng, which Cian stared down, until the door crashed open again, and our mother came forward slowly, leaning on Rogier's arm.

"So," she said, clear and grim, as she came to take her seat, "You have met with Ravenna. What does she want of us?"

"I shall say." He turned and raised his hands, and those before him fell silent.

"Lorcan and I have just met with the Iron Queen," he said, his voice pitched to carry throughout the room. "She wants a bargain with us - with me."

"What sort of bargain?" It was one of his curadhs, the lady Morgaine, and beyond her, someone else called out, "What manner of service?"

"She would have me open a gate for her, and her army, between this and the mortal world." He smiled at their sudden silence. "A gate wide enough, held long enough, that she and her remaining men may pass through, and wagons follow in their train."

At this, there were few in the party before us who did not shift, or fall silent, or draw breath in surprise, for there could be none in those before us who did not know, this power would be the measure of a High King, and none in our lineage had ever attained to it.

At this Odhran, eldest of the hearthguards in Cian's own warband, straightened. "Lord Cian - you would not have said you _could_, would you?"

"I made her no promises," he said. "Lorcan can say truly that I told her twice, there could be no certainty of it, and I would not give her any word otherwise. She knows Clan Wyvern has never had such power."

"Then how, my lord, should she think it possible?"

"And for that matter," said our mother, drawing herself forward, "how should _you? _Because you _do_ now, don't you?"

"She has faith, it seems," he said, "that I may be able to encompass this for her."

"Hah! Then she's a fool," she said. She threw herself back on the chair's cushions, then pulled up again, sharply. "Did she offer anything for this? For a gate such as only a High King might open, to release the Wild Hunt upon the mortal world?"

"She has done," said Cian.

"And what would she trade for this, that you should not simply send her packing?"

He took up the folio again, from the table, and hefted it lightly in his hand.

"This to begin with, as an earnest of her good intentions."

"What is it?"

"A book," he said. "Or part of one." He looked out, searching the gathering again. "Now, did I not send for Scholar Timuth?"

"I come, Lord of Wyverns!" came a reedy voice from the edge of the crowd. "I am here, let me through!"

"Make way for him!" Cian stepped down from the dais, and held up the folio. "Come, cousin! I have something for you to see."

"What is it?" Timuth limped forward heavily on his cane, his young apprentice following. The colours in his faded robe brightened, its velvet seeming to thicken as he came into the light, and I smiled a little within me, that he was willing to glamour himself for so slight a moment of attention.

"A grimoire, we think," Cian said, "received this hour from the Iron Queen, by her brother's hand - " and he smiled, at Timuth's sharp, startled look, "which they both say is from the hand of Argentius himself."

"From his Book of Secrets?" Timuth took it, his face wondering, fumbled at the weight of it. "Here, Ronan, hold it that I may see it!"

"From a Book of Secrets," I said, "that the witch tells us is not one, but many."

"If from Argentius' hand, cousin, it might be a chest of them!" Timuth studied the page beneath his hand, turned it, bent closer to see it more closely, then lookd again up at me. "If not a cartload - he was long-lived, my lord, and a notable wizard from his first century forward."

"Moreover," he continued, "he was one who wrote as though he feared for his memory. We have writings of his in your archive, Lord Cian, on the singing of spells and the seeking of places where rifts between worlds may be broken."

"I know," said Cian. "I brought them to us, hundreds of years past." He smiled at Timuth's look. "Before you came to be our archivist. I think these pages are in the same hand, but I would have your opinion on the matter."

"As soon as I may," said Timuth. "Your leave to go and begin, my lord?"

"Indeed," said my brother.

He drew back, sprang again to the dais, and faced the rest again. "It is part of the bargain, that she is to bring us the rest of that grimoire, and I will have three moons to study it. Only then shall I say under what terms, if any, I will be willing to try what she asks."

"You are willing, then - to try this?" It was Morgaine, again. "Do you believe you can?"

"I do not know," he said. "But I know, as we all know, that opportunity stands before us.

"Our High King is dead, and with him most of those who might have hoped to take his place. The sons of their houses who might someday be magically capable of claiming such powers - " He hesitated, for a breath. "For the most part, they are younger than Lorcan's sons, and mine. It might be as much as a hundred years before any of them will be grown enough to make the attempt."

"In that time, if we may win to such magics as may allow you or any other of our blood to rend the gates between the worlds...we may claim all we have ever dreamed." He considered them. "So we have, now, an opportunity. A period in which, if House Wyvern can find a way to step into the breach, it is my will that we shall do it."

When the hubbub faded to silence, Cian rose to his feet and set his hands to the table before him.

"Make no mistake," he said. "Even if I have not given any word to the witch for it, it is my decision that if this thing can be done, I - and that means 'we' here, who are all of House Wyvern - _will_ do it.

"I will hear any reasonable thing now, that anyone cares to say about it, and answer any tolerable question so far as I am able - _but let there be no confusion about my will regarding this_."

"Go now, and look to what strength we may gather about us, within three moons."

-o0o-

* It's a backstory item, that when the High King comes up with this idea as the one surefire way he's got, to end Ravenna by cutting off her access to mortal females from whom she can 'consume youth', his Queen Mab insists on a period of time in which to create a sanctuary inside a mountain of glass, high up in the mountains that (loosely) girdle the bubble universe of the Otherworld. She retreats there with her court, including all the minor children of noble Sidhe families, most if not all of their valued mortal-female retainers, slaves, etc., and any women who have been in transition from mortal to Sidhe** state, as wives or concubines of their nobility

** It's a further element of backstory that while Ravenna and her followers have made an issue of preserving a more or less pure-bred enclave of mortals descended from Argentius' original collection of stolen mortal slaves, it has always been an option for "stolen" mortals to be 'taken into the body of the Sidhe', basically transformed from mortals into Fae, through the eating of fairy food. This is loosely based on the traditional lore that babies stolen by the Fae would grow up to become Fae themselves (my notion being, that this might be a result of their being wet-nursed by Fae women) increasing a population that was generally held to be somewhat small, long-lived but with a rather low birthrate.

[I am choosing to generalize this as something which _could_ happen with adults, ie., that particularly loved or valued mortals could be offered the opportunity to transform into Sidhe over a period of years, possibly by drinking water from sacred springs, or similar..._and_ I am choosing to make the mother of Cian's still-mostly-mortal son Rogier, one of these women. Still being in some degree mortal, she has been taken with Mab's women into sanctuary. She may or may not show up later, in HRnL.]


	5. Day 10 - 19

What shall I tell you, of the next three moons?

For the first moon, my brother and I became scholars, as we had not been since our first century of life. In less than three days, Scholar Timuth was able to advise us that the folio we had been given matched the writings of Argentius already held in our archive. It was a grimoire, in which he wrote of the means by which a student of magic might probe the barriers between our world and others. The principal thing it revealed was that his own native powers in this regard had never been sufficient.

On the fifth day, the rest of the grimoire was borne to our gates, and our studies began in earnest.

"When I went to Argentius as a youth, and asked what he might teach me of this matter," Cian said later, "he read me a most gracious lecture about so much depending on the innate abilities of the student, that there was little to be done if one did not come from a lineage tending to that power. He offered no more than tests by which we might gauge our ability—"

"Oh, I well remember those!" I said, and rose from my chair to pace our workroom. "Wandering the forest, seeking rifts in the earth—places where the hills were riven with no clear reason—"

"Going before known places where the Hunt had ridden out, and meditating, seeking to feel that shivering in the air which he described..."

"You, climbing to the furthest reach in the cavern at Oberon's Gate, and there reciting the invocations of opening, while Morgaine and I kept watch for any who might guess at what you attempted."

"You harping, playing love ballads to her, so that it might seem you sought only to achieve the magic of music ringing through the hall before it, to enchant her affections."

"Well, I would not say it didn't work," I said. "Fallon and Niallán were eventually the result."

"She being as ambitious in her way, as we in ours." Cian raised a hand, at my lifted brow. "But returning to Argentius—I could never have dreamed that he was such a fraud."

I spread my hands. "Well, indeed, brother! How should you? He _was_ the High King, was he not, from before we were born! How many times must he have opened the Gates for the Hunt?"

"The better part of a thousand." Timuth looked up from the history he was studying, aside from our worktable. "Three, sometimes four times in any twelve moons, for three hundred and sixty years. Until he decided of his own will, to lay aside the crown and retire to his ancestral lands."

"And in all that time, he never had the power to do it unaided, and none ever questioned." said Cian. He leaned upon his hand, a finger brushing his lips, and for a moment was silent. "I would be shocked at the enormity of his deception, if it did not also give me hope."

"However," he said, "it raises another question. Where is the torc?" He reached into the book before him, opening it at one of the several ribbons now marking pages within it, to reveal an image of a torc, neatly inked in bold colour, in all its details. He glanced aside at Timuth. "Having read this, cousin, I have no doubt you are right. We must have this as well, and I wonder that Ravenna made no mention of it."

"She may not know of it, or understand its importance." Timuth drew himself up with a small sigh. "From your account of what she said, Lord Cian, she knew which were her lord's grimoires, and that this volume dealt with the opening of gates between worlds. Not knowing if she _reads_..." He let the words trail off, as Cian studied the drawing.

"It's clear he considered this more important than his crown, to enforce his power when opening the Gates." Cian looked up at me. "I shall send to her at once, to demand it."

"And if it happens that it may be unknown to her, or lost?" I asked.

"Then we may be, too, though I will hope not."

-o0o-

That day also began our search for metal-workers, as Cian's hope was that the torc might also be duplicated. To this end, his next direction was that Timuth should set aside his researches to make as exact a copy as he might, of the drawings of the torc, and with it list the materials and gather in summary Argentius' description of how it was made. He and I then went to consult with our smith.

He was willing to attempt the project, though doubtful that his skills would entirely serve our purposes. Thus it was decided that when Rogier and a party of our younger warriors were sent to gather materials for it, they should also seek along their way for any who might be capable of the delicate metalworking required.

Be it understood that these young men were half-bloods all, still protected in sufficient measure by their mortal mothers' ability to tolerate iron, that it was judged safe for them to seek even to the High King's poisoned citadel...and so it proved. It proved, in fact, that seeking there, they were able to return to our hall within that first moon, bearing both all we required, and leading a considerable number of those who had worked in finer crafts throughout that land.

[**A/N (development)** Before this goes into 'final' form as Lorcan's account of what happens next, I need ways of laying out more clearly, the nuances of what's happening here.

Conceiving House Wyvern as an 'underdog' House among Sidhe royals—as Lorcan notes earlier, people tend to whisper that however fearsome and impressive they may be as draconid weres, their familial powers aren't _really_ much above those of ordinary 'rustic' were-beasts—I see them as disadvantaged in a couple of areas.

Past the basic skills Oracle Sirona describes in 'Chronicles of Mab', ie., minor workings of fire, water, earth and air (eg., fire-lighting), and self-glamouring to appear more impressive, they don't have the power to glamour everything around them, which I'm conceiving as the magical currency, the gold standard for everyday prestige among noble Sidhe. They can't work the necessary spells or routinely mind-warp everyone who walks into the great hall at Caisleán an Dragon to see everything as much more glorious and polished than it really is. These aren't the Fae who can invite you home for a fancy chicken dinner and an overnight stay in their 'high hall', which you wake up in the morning to find is a shepherd's hut with rain leaking in the roof, and the remains of dinner look more like boiled rat bones and bits of corn husk. They can't play magical games to a point where they don't need to care what the reality is. Which means, they have to invest real resources to get anything worthwhile that they have...and consequently, _they aren't wildly rich_. These dragons don't have hoards of gold lying around. Metals may not even be that common in my Otherworld, to begin with. So when Cian wants his smith to have a go at copying Argentius' torc, and possibly two or three goes at it, he has to get people out gathering the precious metals needed.

A convenient place to lay hands on these, right now, would be the former High King's citadel...currently polluted beyond Sidhe toleration, with the cold-iron fallout from Ravenna's spell. That brings me to their second area of disadvantage.

Given their dubious status and prosperity, it's hard for the sons of House Wyvern to find mates among their fellow 'noble' Sidhe. Princesses young enough to be fertile do not line up to marry them... Long-term it limits their ability to (perhaps) strengthen their lineage's magical abilities through their descendents, and for Cian and Lorcan, it means neither have been able to make noble alliances. They've had to settle for, in Cian's case, a series of mortal concubines (short-lived and basically disposable, though the woman who gave him son Rogier, 35-40 years ago, is still alive, and he has decently sent her to safety with the other women in Mab's mountain-of-glass sanctuary) and in Lorcan's case, a long-standing liaison with Morgaine (likely now over) an accomplished warrior-woman of 'rustic' Sidhe descent, which has given him Fallon and Niallán. Hence the comment about Morgaine being ambitious, too...for her it's been a helpful step up, to have sons by even as lowly-ranked a 'noble' as Lorcan.

This means the clan has quite a few children around, out of Cian's and Lorcan's generation of the family, who are born half-blood Sidhe, some number of them not yet old enough (say, loosely, upwards of 100-150 years, out of an estimated 800-1,000 years Sidhe lifespan) to have been what my Sidhe call "taken up into the body of the Sidhe". Which is something that turns up occasionally out in RL fairy lore...the idea that babies stolen away by the fairies, wet-nursed by fairy women and later fed with fairy food, will _become_ fairies, on the same basis as those born to fairy women. At this stage Rogier is the highest-ranked of these. These young men, and possibly a few women as well, _are_ safe to go into the blight zone Ravenna has created.

Sooo...what Cian arranges now, is that Rogier and a troop of these iron-insensitive youth conduct a raid into the blight zone which used to be the High King's domain. _Being rude about it, it's a looting mission:_ sweep up every precious artifact they can lay hands on. Raw stocks of gold, silver and electrum may be a priority, but they will be up for taking everything that isn't nailed down. This is where I also see there being opportunity for them to sweep up and escort back any skilled help they may be able to use back home, eg., any mortal male slaves they encounter, or other half-bloods working as artisans. Doesn't have to be bad news for the people involved, they will be 'rescued' back to a safer future with House Wyvern, though it probably will mean some period of indentured service afterwards.

These aren't points I see Lorcan wanting to make explicit, as part of this story which I'm imagining him either telling or writing down, years later. Between his offering it as a 'testimony' to how events have unfolded, and the lore convention that the Fae don't outright lie about anything, he needs not to be hiding anything that's obvious, but...I'd like to show him pussyfooting more around them. **TL;DR** I need to find ways of making it more obvious that being somewhat marginal as Sidhe nobility, these characters don't have the precious materials they need to experiment with just lying around, and they're going to exploit an aspect of their marginal status to get those resources through what amounts to plain banditry.

Absolutely not writing any kind of 'side quest' focused on Rogier's adventures playing scavenger in the wasteland.]

At the same time, riders were sent bearing a message to Ravenna, describing the torc and advising that for matters to proceed, this must be added as part of our bargain. More followed, when tracing further through the grimoire we realized a second must be found, treating of potions Argentius had used to heighten his sensitivity to the energies in the walls between worlds.

In the days we waited for both parties to return, we began by learning the Invocation of Opening which had ended the first part of the book we had seen, and also to consider where it might best be performed.

The invocation itself was not difficult: we had heard its like before. Never from Argentius himself, but from Deaglan, and from his father Teris before him, once we were both old enough to ride with the Wild Hunt ourselves. We had not attended with the Court often enough to have done so more than once or twice a year, but it was enough to make the cadences of the long verse familiar. It was in fact very similar to the charm Cian had tested in his youth, which I had covered by my very public wooing of Morgaine.

What we had not understood in those days, was that unless we were also in the presence of a rift in the walls between the worlds, or at the very least some point of weakness where one might be broken, no amount of chanting would do anything to aid our cause.

"It also makes sense," Timuth observed, "of the traditional times for our forays into the mortal world falling at the particular times they do."

Cian nodded. "Beltaine, Samhain, or Midsummer Day, or under either a full moon, or in the dark of one."

"Yule is possible as well, though less often performed," Timuth said, with an expression of distaste. "At that I don't wonder! So much colder, and so often wet and unpleasant in the mortal lands in that season."

At that Cian smiled. "Nothing to trouble any creature less delicate than yourself, Timuth. But true. I have ridden at Yule on occasion."

"My point being, my lord, that while Argentius makes no mention of it, others do speak of these as times when the walls between worlds stretch thin, and rifts can be more easily be found."

"Except there's no time for us to _find_ anything," I said. "However we attempt this, Cian, it must be at a known Gate."

"That decision's made," he said. "It's the Oberon's Gate we'll use." He pulled the map towards him, and rested a finger over the valley leading to the field of caverns. "It isn't the nearest to us, or necessarily the largest, but everything points to its being the one Argentius writes about discovering, near the middle of the grimoire."

"The one he describes so exhaustively...and exhaustingly." I shook my head, and rubbed my eyes. "I grant some of it did sound like the big gallery leading to the Gate."

"It is that cavern," said Timuth. "I have found references to it in the House Annals. It was during his reign that it acquired its name, once it became his most common choice from which to command the Hunt. It was then that avenue leading into it was widened, and pillars carved." He hesitated. "My lords, I have a question."

"What?"

"How great a host has the Iron Queen in mind to take with her?"


End file.
